Castle of Glass
by Vasheren
Summary: Loki held Tony's eyes in his, trapped them there, so that Tony had absolutely no choice (at least it felt like it wow he can't even blink because if he blinks maybe he'll die) but to keep staring back as Loki ate him from the inside and it occurred to Tony that the reason he didn't hate Loki now was because his eyes were so /human/ and it /ached/
1. Chapter 1

This is my first Frostiron fic, and I have to say, it is so much fun to write. :D Feedback is greatly, greatly appreciated, as I am kind of fumbling my way along here with these guys and I'd love to know what you think!

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**Chapter 1**

Tony felt a pull.

As he watched Thor's maniacal, murderous, psychotic, monstrous (endless horrible adjectives) get led into a high-security vault by no less than twenty heavily armed SHEILD agents, Tony felt a pull.

He wasn't sure what kind of pull it was; it just flickered through his body in a demanding instant, focusing all his attention, for that brief moment, on Loki's flashing jade eyes- but no, jade wasn't the right word for the colour. They were blue-green, but mostly green, wait, no, more blue—

And then the guards moved Loki around the corner and Tony's gaze was broken and he wasn't sure what had happened. He stood there, holding his helmet, trying to remember what he had been going to so before he had looked over and saw the Asgardian prince being led to his imprisonment, and after what felt like an eternity (only about a second) of confusing green images Tony blinked and looked back to where Thor was standing a few feet away, looking sullen.

Oh right. Consolation.

"Hey, don't worry about it He-Man, he won't be getting out for at _least _a few weeks." That was pretty optimistic, Tony had to admit. Loki always seemed to find a way to wiggle out of any kind of cage Tony could come up with, and always in a timely manner. Points for trying though.

Thor lifted his head and Tony felt the full impact of the man's azure eyes. (Azure. See, easy.) "It is not so much that I wish him to escape, Tony Stark, more that I wish him to see reason."

Yeah, well. "I don't see that happening anytime soon."

Thor sighed, rubbing a hand across his eyes. "And that is sad. I am tired of fighting him. He is my brother—why can't he see it that way?"

"Dunno. Maybe he just really envies your long, luxurious, sunshiney hair." Tony offered, and Thor let a small smile grace his lips, along with an eye roll. Must have learned that one from Clint.

The rest of the Avengers (wow, still calling the team that apparently) were in various stages of relaxation when Thor and Tony emerged from the elevator from the basement/prison floor and into the lounge room (twentieth floor). Thor had cheered up a little thanks to Tony's skills in emotion deflecting and distraction ("I bet Natasha will teach you how to play Assassin's Creed"), and he walked into the room with his shoulders a little less slumped. Tony parked himself in an armchair by the giant window essentially made the entire front wall of the room and peered down over the city. From here he could see the smoky crater that Loki had made in Central Park. He could also see the smoky crater Tony had made in trying to stop him.

"Is anyone else hoping that Loki will just, I don't know, stop fucking up the city?" Clint asked from where he was sprawled on the couch, watching Natasha hand over the game controller to Thor.

"Could always ask him for Christmas." Tony supplied, and Bruce let out an amused huff from the bar, submerged in a glass of beer.

This process was definitely a weird one, Tony had to admit: Loki fucks up the city/planet (although he did seem to like to mess up New York for some reason, why is it _always_ New York for these things), the Avengers swoop in and somehow manage to fuck him up back, drag him into a cell, Loki escapes some time later, and repeat. Nobody knows how he managed to escape from Asgard, nor do they know how he manages to escape from Tony's increasingly elaborate cells, despite the thousands of cameras installed watching the man's every move. He's just there one day, and not there the next. It appears that being called the god of mischief has some merit.

Of course, once Loki's captured, SHIELD usually takes over on the interrogation front. The Avengers are not allowed near him (aside from Thor, because really, who can stop that guy), despite the fact a) they bring him in and b) Loki is always imprisoned in Stark Tower's basement, which is, clearly, Tony's property. Whatever. Tony was usually pretty content to leave the guy alone once he was stored away anyway.

The SHIELD agents never get anywhere with Loki. Neither does Thor. It's all ridiculous since Thor won't let SHIELD torture info out of Loki and Thor can't make him say anything relevant either.

Green-blue.

Those eyes flittered back to Tony as he attempted to relax in his chair. They stared at him, dug into his chest, making the corner of his mouth twitch with displeasure.

Loki pissed him off.

Something about the guy. Every single time he saw him. Tony will get one glance of dark hair and a sardonic smirk and he'll be barging in, repulsors blasting. Maybe it had something to do with being thrown through a wall of glass to his death. Who really knew. At any rate, Tony was always there to watch over the Loki's escort to the cell, always, and always the one to fix the cell and make it more and more (potentially) inescapable.

Today Loki had looked back at him.

Normally, as he was escorted to his cell, he would avoid anyone's gaze (probably deep in thought as to how he was going to escape this time), his mouth pressed in a tight line.

Today he had glanced up at Tony, just before disappearing. (What colour, what colour)

Tony shifted in his seat as he felt the pull again from memory, a smart throb somewhere in him, and it was not comfortable. He'd never paid attention to Loki's eyes before. He was always so busy trying to beat the crap out of him, get him out of the way so that Tony wouldn't feel so disconcertedly angry, it was a disturbing feeling.

His eyes should be blood red.

Tony pushed himself out of his chair and shuffled over to bar, slipping behind the counter and grabbing a glass, Bourbon, and some ice. Relief had always been the biggest feeling Tony had whenever Loki would be stuffed in his cell. Tony drank.

…..

Hours later and the drinking didn't make the weirdness go away, which is kind of always the goal with drinking. Just replace 'weirdness' with 'why did Pepper leave me' or 'company' and boom, and it normally worked. Now Tony just ended up very drunk and very alone.

"O'course everybody's in bed, JARVIS, jeez." He slurred a few hours later from the chair.

"Sir, _you_ just asked _me_ if they were."

Tony watched as a drop of Bourbon-water slid down a melty ice cube. "Oh."

"Perhaps you should call it a night?"

Tony rolled his head until he was glaring at the ceiling. "Like I sh' listen to you. You're jusssa AI—Artificial Ignoramus." He burst out laughing and the glass slipped from his fingers. The sound of it shattering only made him laugh harder.

"As usual sir, your wit only improves per drink." JARVIS quipped, and Tony gave the ceiling the finger.

He sat there for a few moments longer, chin resting on his chest, just breathing, before he gave up. "Well, since my drink esploded, I guess I sh' gobed."

"Always a smart move."

Tony stumbled off of the chair, narrowly missing the shards of glass and ice on the floor, and staggered his way to the elevator. Once the doors closed in front of him, he gave the floor list a good, unsteady look before pushing the button for his bedroom floor. The elevator lurched downward and Tony slipped to the floor, landing on his butt and giggling(holy shit it's like a rollercoaster) as the number display above the doors slipped lower and lower, and then into the basement levels. Just as Tony let out a particularly tasty belch, the doors _pinged_ and a very stark, dimly lit hallway greeted him. Tony yawned and slowly got to his feet. Bed was actually sounding pretty awesome (totally forgot about the satin sheets recently purchased for the bed fuck yes). He slowly made his way out of the elevator, frowning at the darkness.

"JARVIS, buddy, coodyou make it a lil'briher in here?"

The hallway was snapped into intense, bright light, and then Tony was giggling again.

"Hahah, I picked a basement floor, whatta dope." Tony leaned against the heavy concrete wall, frowning as he recognized the particular hall. He hadn't even been in most of the basement floors, since all of his techy stuff was above ground and most of the basement floors housed generators and small arc reactors. Actually, there was only one floor without them…

He felt a lurch in his chest when it finally occurred to him(-shit).

"Just fuckin', go back in the elevator." He muttered, looking down the hallway.

But, around a couple of corners and some doors was that _evil prick_. Maybe, maybe Tony should go mess with him a little (bad idea bad idea)?

He took a few breaths, wishing that he had thought to bring another drink with him, and proceeded to stagger down the hallways, stopping at random lockdown points and providing a scan of a very bloodshot eyeball, or a fingerprint, or a voice matching("yo ho ho and a bottle of rummm") to open various doors. Eventually, he stood in front of a final set of thick, locked doors, and a final identification check. This door only Fury and Tony could open, even though Tony never did. He usually just watched Loki disappear down the hall before it.

Tony tapped in the digits needed to open the door (third time's the charm), and with a loud _hissss_ the doors unlatched and slid open just wide enough for a person to slip through. Tony did so after a few fumbling moments of trying to get through without turning sideways (not possible), and once inside he glanced up at his newest cage.

It was a large glass cube(twelve feet high, twenty feet wide, not exactly a cube but that's what everyone called it) There was no door—the floor lifted up and down to get out of it. The controls for that were, obviously, outside of the cell. The glass walls of the cube were laced with tiny, near invisible wires of every metal Tony had at his disposal, anything to try and stop Loki's magic (Tony still was not sure how his magic worked, no matter how many times he tried to come up with something to locate it/unwrap it/harness it, so he just threw in everything to see if anything stopped it), making the glass very hard to break. It was also a foot thick.

There were speakers tucked high in the upper corners of the cube so that conversation could be carried out between criminal and good guy, although that didn't happen much. And of course there were cameras, heat-detectors, motion-detectors, etc. There were no personnel, as after countless escapes Fury realized there was absolutely no point in having people there since most of the time they just ended up with throwing knives imbedded in their chests. All of Loki's activities were monitored by technology, the readings delivered to SHIELD.

Tony eyed the monitoring devices as he came into the immense room (the cube was at the centre of it, around the cube were stations and bleeping computers and technology that Tony wasn't interested in at the moment), debating whether or not to activate the microphone so that he could speak to the freak in the cage.

He kept his gaze on the machinery for a few long moments, looking right through it, realizing he was deliberately avoiding looking in the cube(then why did he come in here?). Feeling a knot in his chest, he licked his lips and cast his drunken eyes on the man in the box.

Loki was staring at him.

Tony swallowed (jesus christ).

Loki was standing at the edge of the cube, nearly pressed against the glass wall in front of Tony, his (what the hell colour) eyes looking down at the shorter man appraisingly, questioningly, amused (?). He was wearing the dark pants and boots that normally went with his whole Asgardian look, but the armour and whatever shirt he wore under it had been removed. His hair was in its usual inky slide behind his ears and on his shoulders. His lips were partly open, as though tasting the air.

His eyes were unblinking in their assessment of Tony (what kind of assessment what is that), the no-name shade of his eyes different than before, now they were a deep green, no trace of blue at all, and the hairs on Tony's arms were standing on end.

There was the pull, there it fucking was. Lodged in Tony's chest as he stared up at Loki, at that murderous bastard, and Tony wasn't feeling pissed off like he normally did.

Loki held Tony's eyes in his, trapped them there, so that Tony had absolutely no choice (at least it felt like it wow he can't even blink because if he blinks maybe he'll die) but to keep staring back as Loki ate him from the inside and it occurred to Tony that the reason he didn't hate Loki now was because his eyes were so _human_

and it _ached _

because Loki can't have feelings, he can't, he kills people without remorse, he destroys, he's diabolical-

Tony's hands were shaking (need to get out of here _now_). A slow, slow smile made its way on Loki's lips and Tony spun around and ran to the door, squishing out of it and quickly typing in the code for them to close, breathing deeply. The doors took half a century to close, and once they did, Tony threw up on the number pad.

…..

Consciousness greeted Tony some undetermined time later, and along with it the delightful throbbing of a vicious hangover.

"Oh _God_." Tony groaned, keeping his eyes shut against the daylight pressing orange against them, rubbing the tips of his fingers into his temples (wow wow wow never again never ah shit who are we kidding here).

Something cool touched the skin of Tony's hand, forcing him to open his eyes (slowly). After the burning sun caused his brain to explode his eyes adjusted and he found himself blinking at Steve Rogers. The man wore a look of pure sympathy on his face and Tony hated the fact that he was too incapacitated to wipe it off of there.

"Hey Rocket Pop, what's new with life." Tony grunted, the words like sandpaper on his dry tongue.

Steve shook his head and pressed the glass of water he was holding into Tony's hand. "Why do you do this to yourself, Tony?"

The man in question glared as best as he could over the glass as he gingerly drank it, stomach rolling. He handed it back to Steve once the contents were swishing around (stormy sea) in his stomach.

"It was just a few drinks, probably two max."

Steve folded his hands in his lap, the movement making catching Tony's eye and making him look down. Which made him notice he was in his bed. Wow, when did that happen? Okay, rewind time. Tony was drinking…drinking a lot…because-

Because (_oh shit shit shit shit shit)_ reasons.

"Tony, you were definitely on your fifth drink when we all went to bed last night…."

"Pssh, it can never be proven." Tony said with a small grunt, an angry pulse going through his skull. He lay back down, grabbed a pillow and flopped it over his face.

More green than blue. Lips forming a smile.

Tony was vaguely aware that Steve was saying something about lunch, and then Steve was gone. Tony almost wished he'd come back, left alone he was going to start thinking about things, and he really, really did not want to think about things. He (unfortunately) remembered everything from last night. Which, oddly, really wasn't much of anything at all. He just drunkenly gawked at Loki for a few seconds (agonizing, hypnotizing). But _jesus, _it didn't _feel_ like not much of anything.

That something tight in his chest resurfaced stronger than before, with it a strange familiar feeling, one Tony recognized well: curiosity.

Tony found himself wanting to _know_.

(fuck).

"JARVIS?"

"Feeling better are we sir?"

"Don't get too excited, peaches. I need you send me last night's camera feeds from the basement cells."

"I assume you want the footage of the time you were down there?"

"You got it. Actually, give me from when I got down there until now." Tony groped at his bedside table until his fingers closed on a slim screen, bringing it onto his lap. Tapping it awake with his fingers, he shoved some random data aside on the screen to make way for JARVIS' video. A few seconds later, a window popped up at the screen, and Tony was watching himself drunkenly make his way to Loki's cell.

"Wow, yeah, looking good as always." A reassuring throb went through his brain, as though cautioning him from ever doing it again.

Eventually drunk Tony opened the final door and fumbled through it. The feed switched to one in the cell room, giving a clear shot from the side of Tony's entrance and of Loki in the cell. Instead of watching himself come into the room, Tony directed his attention to Loki.

The man stood up as the room doors opened, and his dark head tilted to the side, as though curious as to who would show up at that hour (curiosity, too human, no no no). His eyes widened a fraction as Tony stumbled into the room, and Loki took a few steps towards the glass wall of his cell. A few slow, measured blinks later, Tony in the video gave in and looked up at the man in the prison.

Tony sitting in his bed felt his guts churn as the two in the video locked eyes. It was kind of creepy, watching himself have this encounter with Loki, as though Tony was an impartial third party. Except this _had_ happened to him. He had wandered into the villain's room.

He couldn't help but feel irritated at his drunk self for doing such a random thing. Loki probably had no idea what he was even doing down there, especially since he just took off after a few seconds(actually, as Tony was seeing now, they had stared at each other for well over half a minute, which is a seriously long time to stare at someone). Tony watched himself shake slightly in the video, and then abruptly turn and run out of the room. Loki in the cell was smiling, and Tony felt the hairs on his arms raise at the sight. What did that smile mean? What has Tony _done_?

The feed switched to back out in the hallway, and from here on out Tony was totally in the dark as to what happened. How the hell did he get into his room after passing out?

Video Tony closed the doors and swayed before throwing up. He slid to his feet and fell over onto the cold tile floor, blessedly missing his own puke puddle in the process. And then nothing.

And nothing. Ten minutes of Tony sleeping on the floor with absolutely nothing happening.

Maybe someone came down and found him in the early morning? Tony flicked his finger on the video for it to speed ahead, and minutes flew by, until-(_whoa shit what what the fuck)_

Loki was standing over Tony's sleeping body.

Tony sputtered, reversing the video until a few minutes before. Out of nowhere, Loki just materialized outside of the cell room doors. He walked over to Tony's unconscious self and stood over him, that same, disturbing smile on his lips.

Tony's skin was crawling. (Oh God, oh man, no). Loki stood over his body for a few minutes, just looking, and the entire time he was watching Tony's heart was thumping in his chest.

And then…and then Loki moved. He swept his arm over the mess Tony had spewed from his stomach previously, and it completely disappeared. He then hunched over Tony (heart threatening to burst from his chest), _laughed_, and then waved his arm and _Tony disappeared too_.

"JARIVS, bedroom feed!"

"Already on it, sir."

JARVIS sent him a video of this very room hours before. In a small flash of green light, Tony appeared on top of his bed.

Tony licked his lips (holy shit holy shit) and looked back to the basement hallway video.

Loki was staring up into the camera.

Just staring. He blinked once.

And then disappeared.

"JARVIS—"

"Done, sir."

The feed from the cell room displayed again, and it showed Loki's reappearance in his cell. He walked over to his cot and sat down, resting his chin against steepled fingers.

Tony leaned back against his pillows, hissing as his brain throbbed. What just happened?

"JARVIS, please explain to me what I just saw."

The AI's response was far too sarcastic for Tony's liking. "Well it would appear that you got sent to bed by Loki Laufeyson sir."

"But I mean…what…_why."_ He felt disturbed, and violated, _confused_ and at the same time the pull still existed, _and_ along with it that newfound curiosity, and _shit_ that was a lot to feel at once. Tony didn't know. He just didn't know.

"I don't know, sir. Perhaps you should ask him?"

Tony ran a weary hand down his face. "Yeah, no. I won't be visiting him again. I can't even figure out why I would in the first place." (lies).

A scary thought occurred to him. "Has Fury or anyone else seen this yet?"

"No sir, so far this footage has only been accessed by you."

(sweet mercy) "Good. I need you to delete all the footage on the server concerning that event; from when I left the lounge room until after I magically fucking appeared on my bed, got it?"

"Yes sir. And how do you suggest I fill in the gap of missing footage should Fury discover it?"

"Um, just, create a repeating loop of whatever was there before the incident, and adjust the clock accordingly."

"All right sir." JARVIS almost sounded disappointed.

Tony looked down at the screen on his lap. He created a folder, called it "Ripley's", and dumped the incriminating footage into it.

Steve had said something about lunch.

That sounded like a decent distraction.

…..

"Tony!"

Tony barely flew out of the way as a laser beam swept through his old position. Holy shit.

"It would be great if you'd pay attention." Natasha said stiffly in Tony's helmet as he flew above the scene, and for once, he didn't have a snappy comeback. That had been a little too close.

"Gotcha." He said stiffly, opening his wrist rockets and targeting thirty or so Doombots. The rockets launched and the robots exploded in a large, firey cloud, and Tony was briefly satisfied. Until about a hundred more took their place. Jesus fuck, how did Doom have the_ time_ to make all of these?

"Where the hell does he get the _resources_?" Tony quipped as he used the repulsors in his hands to blow the heads off of a bot.

"Not important right now, just focus on taking out as many as you can!" Steve snapped impatiently, and Tony glanced down briefly to see the Captain throw his shield to knock a robot back to the Hulk, who gleefully tore the thing in two. His contented roar made Tony grin.

Although not nearly as troublesome as Loki, Doom was high up on the list. Nearly every stunt he pulled involved numerous amounts of shitty Doombots, doing shitty things and buzzing around Tony's far superior technology like shitty bees.

At this point in the fight, Doom had taken off with a large amount of xenon for whatever project he was working on now, and of course, that was the government's xenon, not his. The bots had been summoned as a distraction as Doom had just fucking ran off, and as usual, they were an ample distraction simply because _there were so many of them. _And the Avengers couldn't have them making more of a mess of New York City so soon after Loki's last wreckage.

Loki (fuck, it always came back to this didn't it).

The motions of fighting the Doombots had become so regular that Tony's mind had drifted off, in a more Loki-centric direction.

The whole fiasco with the drunken cell visit had been three days ago. After Tony forced himself to eat lunch with the team after viewing the cell footage, he had gone right back to his tablet and watched the recording of Loki's cell for the remainder of the evening. The guy had just sat there, fingers steepled, eyes closed, for the entire night (that is until SHEILD agents came in for their usual attempt at an interrogation, something Tony lost interest in ten minutes in since Loki didn't even respond with a blink to the questions hurled at him).

Since then, Tony's mind has been predictably swollen with _what the hell happened why did he do that why did I do that what is wrong with me shit shit shit why didn't he just kill me what the hell is with him why are his eyes like that I don't like it it's not right godamnit why did he smile why did he go back in the cell if he could escape not that I'm arguing with that choice but why why why fuck_

Along with that the ever present choice: should he just take JARVIS' advice and _ask _the man? Tony was more reluctant than ever to go visit the guy in the cell (not every day your miserable vomit is cleaned up by your deity-esque villain).

His dreams since that night have been in blue and green.

"_TONY!"_

A Doombot grabbed Tony from behind, wrapping its arms around his neck and squeezing.

"_Shit, _sneaky bastard—" He flailed a bit, the weight of the bot on his back messing with his hovering, robotic arms obscuring his vision.

"Sir, if it continues to increase pressure the inside of the suit will be breached—"

"Yeah no_ shit_ JARVIS—"

Tony got his wits together, reaching behind his head, and quickly guessing the angle, sliced the Doombot's head in half with his wrist lasers. The cartridges flew away with a _click_ and the Doombot fell sparking to the ground.

Tony let himself ease to the ground, breathing hard. Fuck.

Steve marched over to him, blue eyes lit up with rage. "Tony, what is wrong with you? You can't afford to be this distracted in the middle of a fight! You know that!"

Tony shifted uncomfortably, knowing Steve was right but hating it all the same. He really didn't have it in him to fight with him, or come up with an excuse as to why he was so spacey. "Yeah, sorry. I just, uh, yeah. Sorry. Thanks."

The Captain stared at him for a few seconds longer, suspicious that Tony gave in so easily, then patted him on his armoured, scratched shoulder. "Just watch out for yourself, all right?"

Tony nodded, and the two resumed demolishing Doombots. Clint barked at them that he spotted Doom's car a few streets away, and the Hulk took off in that direction. Soon enough, Doom was apprehended (his car ripped apart, his cloaked body flung out of the vehicle by huge green hands), the xenon was recovered, and the Doombots were once again a problem of the past.

Tony couldn't help but feel irritated some things lately weren't so tidy.

….

Because he needed to talk to her (she makes him do things that are sensible), he called Pepper.

"Hey, Potts."

A chuckle. "Hi Tony, how have you been?"

"Oh, you know, I've been me." (I miss you so much)

She snorted. "I guess we shouldn't expect miracles."

"Ouch."

Pepper laughed, and the sound made Tony's chest ache. "So why the call? You only call me when you need something, so fess up bub."

(you shouldn't have left me) "Nah, can't I call my buddy without _needing _something from her? Maybe I just want to catch up, you know, gossip a little, talk about booyyyz."

"Tony, wow."

(she's still too good) "All right, cripes. Okay, so, uh…."

"Tony…what did you do?"

(she would have stopped me) "I didn't do a damned thing."

He can _feel _her roll her eyes, shuffle a little on her feet like she does when she's anxious, "What did you _do_?"

(fess up bub) "Um, well, you know how we sometimes happen to keep the Heir of Slytherin downstairs?"

"Yes…do you happen to have him there now?"

"Yeahhh…"

"_Tony."_

(oh shit that's the no-nonsense Pepper voice spit it out Tony before she tears it out of you) "Okay so I got drunk the other night and went down to his cell."

There's a very heavy pause. Tony has a sudden itch on his lower back, and wow shit, that's super itchy, can he even reach down there? Let's see-

"Why would you do that, Tony?"

(can't fucking reach, damn, he's getting old) "I don't know."

Pepper sighs, and it's heavy, and suddenly Tony's recalling what she said to him the night she left ("you're always getting yourself into _stupid _situations that I can't help you with Tony and it's _killing me_"), and maybe he shouldn't have called her but he needed to—"All right then, what happened when while you were down there?"

Tony finally got his fingers to the spot on his back, his nails scraping across his skin almost painfully. "I looked at him and then I left."

"…that's it?"

"Yeah. Oh, and uh, I barfed outside the doors and passed out and he sort of teleportedoutsidetheboxandfo undmeandteleportedmetomyroom ?"

"…_WHAT?"_

"Okay Pepper can we skip the berating and get to the helping?"

"Tony, I, what…_what?"_

Tony huffed impatiently. "Yes, it happened, and I don't know how to even _deal _so…"

There's a weighted silence on the other end, and Tony had vision of Pepper standing against her kitchen wall in her new home in Malibu, mouth open, eyes downcast as she processed the information. Tony wished he couldn't picture it so clearly.

"Pepper?"

"Oh _God_ did he _hurt _you? Are you _okay?_" Clearly confusion had given way to concern.

"Yes yes I'm fine. Weirdly enough. He literally just magicked away my barf and then plopped me into my bed. And then he just, fuckin, went back to his cell and he's been there ever since."

"H-how long ago did this _happen_?"

"Um...about four days ago?"

"TONY..."

Tony was getting annoyed. "Can I finish summarizing now? TELL ME WHAT TO DO."

"ALL RIGHT, Tony, it's just a lot to take in—"

"Yeah no kidding—"

"And for you to just, _demand _me to tell you—"

"Look all I'm asking for is some direction—"

"I mean has Fury found out about this—"

"SHIELD definitely doesn't need to know—"

"You're not even _safe_—"

"Besides this call is on my private server, backed up to hell with encrypted codes—"

"What if he gets out _again,_ what are you going to do—"

"He does it like every Tuesday, it's not surprising anymore—"

"Which is kind of the point Tony—"

"Don't you think I know—"

"I don't like hearing this stuff—"

"ALL RIGHT." Tony said finally, groaning into the phone. Pepper abruptly stopped. An awkward silence followed in which both parties realized their banter had been all too familiar.

"What are you going to do?" Pepper's voice was a bit more guarded.

"I…don't know. I've been sitting on this for days. I imagine with all the cumulative angst and some love it should hatch into a lovely dramatic episode for all to see." Tony's words had a bit of a bite to them (finally, finally getting there).

"This is…not a situation I would have expected. Why did you even _go _down there in the first place?"

Annoying. "Like I said, I don't know. I was just so drunk I picked the wrong floor in the elevator, and before I knew it I was on my way there."

"Hmm."

Another silence. Tony realized what was he was about to be told, and he suddenly didn't want to speak to Pepper anymore.

"Uh so yeah that was a thing that happened, uh, I guess I'll talk to you later?"

"Excuse me?"

"Bye Pepper!" Tony chirped, ending the call.

He stood there for a few long minutes, his jaw working, knowing it was inevitable. He had to fucking _know_.

"Fuck."

He sighed before going to the suit.

Twenty minutes later he stood in the elevator, watching the numbers count down the floors. The Iron Man suit seemed to more stifling than usual. Tony could barely breathe—a bead of sweat ran down his cheek and disappeared into the collar of his undersuit.

The doors opened on the bottom floor with a cheerful ping, and Tony just stood there. What the fuck was he doing?

That horrible feeling in his chest propelled him forward. He listened to the comforting electronic whine of his suit moving as he made his way through the barriers, and far too soon, he stood in front of the final set of doors. He reached up and let the faceplate fall down, encasing his body entirely, covering all exposed flesh. He typed in the digits to open the doors.

The doors agreed with his passcode and they opened their thin entrance. Tony strode over and (forced) pushed the doors open further, allowing the bulk of his suit to pass through.

The room was hideously silent. Tony's armoured footsteps into the room were as loud as symbols.

Feeling somehow safer behind his faceplate, Tony looked up to see Loki sitting calmly in the cage, hands folded on his lap, skin near white in the intense florescent lighting.

He was smiling again, his eyes looking straight into Tony's despite the barrier of the faceplate there, and Tony was instantly exposed.

His heartbeat was bruising his eardrums.

"You've returned."

Tony watched the words form and leave Loki's lips, shuddering as the calm, earthy texture of Loki's voice pushed past the sound of his heart. Tony swallowed (jesus what is wrong with him what is this), forcing himself not to run away _yet again_.

"Hmm, yeah. I've got some questions." Okay, good. Voice didn't even shake.

Loki blinked, and somehow it was the slowest blink in history. Everything seemed to take so fucking _long._ "Do you?"

(fucking hell) Tony quickly realized he should have thought this through a little. He had no idea where to even _start_. What the hell did he even want to ask him? And besides, even if Tony managed to come up with a question that totally captured his flailing, disoriented thoughts of late, who's to say that Loki will even be honest? Jesus Christ he's _Loki_ what is _wrong _with Tony—

"Stark."

Tony blinked. Shit, had he just spaced off again?

Instantly furious at himself (he's Tony fucking Stark for God's sake, he's the master of comebacks, how the hell can he be letting himself down so often lately not to mention he is _right in front of Loki _this is happening _right now_, get your shit together), Tony marched over to the cell, hands clenched into fists. He tried to be intimidating about it.

Loki stood in a swift, graceful movement, and walked toward the glass. The two stopped when they stood a few feet apart, separated by the thick wall of metal and glass. Loki's eyes were twice as intense this close, and Tony refused to acknowledge the shaking in his knees.

"What are you doing?" He asked, relief flooding through his veins as he finally managed to _say something_.

Loki raised an eyebrow. "Whatever do you mean?"

"No," Tony poked the glass with a gloved finger, "what are you doing?"

"You're wondering why I'm still here."

"Among other things."

Loki chuckled. "Why the suit?"

"Defenseless isn't really a state I like to be in concerning you." (not again)

"What makes you think that suit will protect you from me?"

The words were said pleasantly enough, but they crawled over Tony's skin like bitter ants (he _knew_).

"Why are you here, Stark?"

"Uh, no, I just asked you that, and you haven't answered me."

Loki tilted his head and walked away, down along the glass wall, long-fingered hand dragging across the smooth surface. "I'm here because I want to be. You?"

Curiosity. It tugged inside Tony's chest despite how much he hated it, he _hated _it. "I'm bothered, and it takes a lot to bother me. Why would a demi-god with teleportation skills and a knack for killing people willingly stay imprisoned?"

"It can hardly be called imprisonment if I stay of my own volition, can it?" Loki's teeth flashed in the light.

"Yeah but _why_?"

"I'll be gone soon enough, Stark. Rest assured."

Tony resisted the urge bust through the glass and throttle the man. The only other person this irritating that Tony could recollect was himself.

"Are your lovely acquaintances at SHIELD watching us?" Loki's gaze flickered to a camera mounted conspicuously in a corner of the cube.

"Does it matter?" Tony hissed, patience growing thin. He felt jittery, uncomfortable, like something had just spooked him from the shadows.

"No, I suppose it doesn't. Just…curious." Loki drew out the last word, as though deliberately poking at Tony's weak spot, and he lost it.

Tony flipped the faceplate up, cool air rushing over his sweaty face, and he locked eyes with Loki once again.

"What is it that is bugging you most, Tony Stark?" Loki asked slickly, moving back towards Tony along the glass wall, his eyes boring into Tony's, "My presence in your laughable prison, or my more than generous actions the other night? Or is it something else entirely…?"

And then suddenly, he was gone. Vanished. Tony inhaled and whipped around, hands rising to protect himself.

Loki stood before him, just staring. Tony charged the repulsors, and in the split second they took to fire Loki was gone again. The repulsor blasts shot out uselessly, the bright beams destroying a surveillance grid a few meters away. Tony quickly dropped the visor just as bits of metal and sparks blew back to him.

Breathing heavily, he raised his hand and shot another repulsor beam at the glass wall of the cube. It cracked as the blast hit the surface. Tony couldn't help but admire the strength of the thing as he fired beam after aggressive, pent-up anger beam at it, until it fractured too much and fell in a single cracked sheet to the floor.


	2. Chapter 2

Holy crap, I am so sorry it's been so long! My excuse is this: UNIVERSITY. But here you go, Chapter 2, fresh off the goddamn press, enjoy! :D

* * *

Unlike his first foray into Loki's prison, this one came with repercussions. While Tony had been able to delete the footage of his stumbling around last time before anyone had seen it, he _really_ wasn't able to this time. The cell Tony had made for SHIELD included sensors that knew when there was nothing in the cell, and they went off, alerting Fury and his cast of stone-faces to some trouble. Apparently Loki had disabled those before when he decided to tuck Tony in (this magic thing is _irritating_ and so _unfair_). Now however, he had chosen not to (just another fucking thing to wonder about), and within five minutes there were men storming into the prison room.

Tony heaved a sigh as the men _hup-hup_'dinto the room (not actually, but that would have been great). They ran up to the glaringly empty, slightly-beat up cube and waved their guns around, a few of them pointing at Tony.

"Hold up trigger-happy, not the culprit here."

"How do we know that, Stark?"

Nick Fury billowed past the armed men (still wondering if the guy ever took off that damn coat) and stomped up to Tony, his lips pulled down in a grimace.

"Uh, good guy. Pretty sure I earned that boy-scout badge a looong time ago. Sits right next to my sewing and woodcarving badges."

"You've earned _dick_ all, Stark." Fury gestured towards Tony's demolished glass prison. "Have any of your fucking cells ever _worked? _NO. THE ANSWER IS THEY HAVE NOT."

Tony avoided the needle –like gaze Fury was directing towards him in favour of the cracked glass sheet on the floor. "I'm working on it. Believe it or not, it's actually kind of _difficult_ to, well, _stop a god _from doing what he wants." (which is fucking _what _exactly?)

"I don't _need _your bullshit, Stark. The fucking fact of the matter is you are literally the only asshole that I've got to work on something good enough to capture that nasty piece of Aesir _shit_. Stark, you are the _only person_ capable of getting him. If there was someone else with your technological prowess we'd _get _that motherfucker in here to fire your ass but we don't. What I don't fucking understand is how you are capable of bringing him _in,_ but you can't _keep him_. Please enlighten me on how that makes any damn sense!" Fury was practically in Tony's face at this point, forcing him look up and meet Fury's enraged eye (where do you even _look_ with the one-eye thing? Would he be pissed if Tony looked at the patch instead of his eye?).

"Look, I am just as baffled by this as you are, _Director. _I can't read his damn teleports- how the hell do you counter that? If I could figure out how that even makes sense, I could maybe work something out to stop it! But as it is all I can do is just make weirder and weirder cells." Tony nudged the crumpled sheet of glass on the floor, nose twitching. That is expensive shit to make.

Fury, apparently not interested in Tony's wheedling, pushed past him and walked over to a surveillance station. He pressed a bunch of buttons, expression dark (when is it not?). Suddenly Tony was hearing Loki's voice magnified around the room.

"_You've returned."_

The hairs on Tony's arms rose. Jesus, that literally just happened and he's getting antsy about it _again_. Just Loki's voice was enough to make Tony squirm. Fury's eye narrowed at the video playback at the terminal, hidden from Tony's view (don't want to look at that green bastard again right now no).

"_Hmm, yeah. I've got some questions."_

Fury paused the playback. "What did he mean by 'you've returned'?" His question was posed without any kind of inflection.

(whoooops, shit)

"Uhh…" (think of something, fuck, he totally forgot about half the shit that was said in that brief conversation he's totally busted) Tony waved his hand in the air a bit, grasping for an explanation. When words escaped him, Fury just shook his head and resumed playback.

The entire conversation played out, and with each incriminating line Tony felt like shrinking down even further into his suit. Fury glared at the screen and seemed to take deep, deep breaths. Eventually Tony heard the sound of his repulsors beating on the glass cube and Fury stopped the playback. He crossed his arms, turned in Tony's direction, and _stared_.

"Okay," Tony said quickly, "okay. You know the other day when we brought him in? Just as you turned the corner to his cell he looked up and grinned at us. Which, well, made me suspicious, so I went down later to ask him what his deal was, but when I got down there he creeped me out so badly I just basically walked in and then left." Tony rambled. Not at all the truth, but acceptable. (right?) "And then just now I came back and braved past the creepy, to do my duty as a protector of this city!" His voice rose to a triumphant shout, looking at the other SHIELD men in the room for moral support. No? No.

Fury's face was that of someone who has never once been impressed in his life. "Uh-huh. And where is the footage of this first frightened visit, Stark?"

"Uh, I had JARVIS delete it since nothing actually happened, and I didn't want to, um, involve you guys unnecessarily. Not a big deal. _Obviously," _Tony added, "I would have told you guys about this encounter since you know, he actually talked and shit." (_there_, great, good)

Fury's jaw was working. Tony flashed him his brightest, billion-dollar smile (blinding, he's been told), and, weirdly enough, Fury tilted his head.

"That was the most Loki has ever said in one sitting during any of his stints here." He said thoughtfully.

"Ha, yeah, maybe the guy just likes to piss me off."

"Maybe." Fury agreed, and Tony found something unsettling in his tone.

"Where is this going?" He asked, dread creeping up his spine (oh god no).

Fury walked over to Tony and jabbed him in the chest. Tony could have sworn he felt it through his armour. "He talked to you. He_ never _talks. You know _exactly _where this is going. You're going to talk to him again."

Tony groaned, rolling his head back and staring up at the heavens with pleading eyes. (no. no. no no no no)

"The next time he shows his pasty ass and you take him down and shove him into another Stark brand shit box, you are going to come down and talk to him. I don't care what you say to him; talk about the weather, ask him what shampoo he uses, I don't give a fuck. Make him talk. Maybe," Fury added with another well-placed jab, "eventually he'll say something useful before he fucking escapes again."

"What if he doesn't say anything?" Tony asked hopefully.

Fury just looked at him, turned on his heels and began walking away. He gestured the SHIELD men away with a flick of his fingers towards the door, and the room quickly emptied through Tony's newly enlarged exit. Tony stared after them with a strange kind of longing (must be so _nice _not to be Tony sometimes) before trailing along behind them, armour whining uselessly as he went.

Ten minutes later Tony was flying above the city, arms behind him, feeling the repulsors in his hands and feet push him forward, and it was glorious. His mind was utterly blank. He watched his reflection in the Hudson, a streak of red and gold and blue in the night sky. He flew over Central Park, scared some couples making out on the benches. He flew high above the city, high enough that the 1 WTC was simply a square among specks. He turned off the repulsors and simply let himself fall, listened to the wind whistling past him outside the suit, watched as the buildings quickly approached him, spires threatening, and at the last second turned the power back on and pushed back into the air, the resulting breeze blowing discarded newspapers into traffic. He flew over to the Statue of Liberty and gave her a saucy salute before pushing towards Stark Tower. He landed with some weariness on the pad at the top floor, stepping forward and letting the machines remove the suit from his body.

And then he was inside, walking down the steps towards the bar, which led into the seating area, which in turn was directly facing the glass wall, the giant window that provided Tony with a view of the city no one else could claim as their own.

He walked to this window and pressed a hand to the cool glass, watching condensation appear along the edges of his palm (and then he felt the glass shattering on his back and he was falling) and _then_ the thoughts roared back in, the pressure, the intensity, the inevitability of it.

And Tony gave in. If he was going to do this, he was going to _do this._ He was going to face it.

There was a part of Tony was a genuinely curious about Loki. There was also a part of him that was absolutely frightened by it, and of him, that was reluctant and miserable with the thought of what was about to transpire.

Loki had escaped again. He was out there somewhere. He was likely going to come back.

This time Tony would be ready for him.

….

After spending all night in his shop attempting to think of new cell plans (sitting at the desk tapping a pencil against his head), Tony flopped into his bed at roughly six a.m., completely exhausted. He lay there for about half an hour before he decided sleep was impossible, and he stumbled out of his sheets and into the shower. He watched the water running off of his body with a grim satisfaction, knowing the dried nervous-sweat from his encounter with Loki was leaving him (and it would hopefully be the last of that sort to form on his body).

He then had a coffee (and another) before glancing at his watch to discover it was seven. Would Thor be up by now?

"JARVIS, how's our resident God of Thunder doing this morning?"

"He is awake, sir, currently staring at the toaster in the kitchen area of the twentieth floor."

"Man, he's still not understanding that? Do they cook toast on pyres in Asgard or what?"

"Shall I call him up, sir?"

"Hmm, nah, I'll come down to him."

And so Tony took the elevator to the twentieth floor, walked through the lounge room and discovered Thor holding the toaster up at eye level, peering inside. The ridiculous musculature of his chest and arms stood bare in the early morning—he was clad only in a pair of linen drawstring pants. Red, of course. His golden hair was artfully tousled from sleep. Tony felt the usual pang of irritation at the sight (seriously unfair) and dismissed it as he took the toaster from Thor's large hands.

"Buddy, you have to plug it in."

"Ah. I know you have reminded me of this many times, Tony Stark, but I am afraid my thoughts this morning are directed towards other things." Thor sighed as Tony plugged the toaster in and plopped two poptarts into the slots. He pushed the switch down and crossed his arms, pondering his point of attack.

"I'm guessing Fury told you about Loki?"

Thor nodded, tiredness evident in his blue eyes. "He escapes us again. As much as I am sure you do not want to hear this, I miss him. I miss talking to him. This endless cycle of battle and silence makes me yearn for freer days."

"No, I get that." Tony said quickly, watching Thor's fingers drum impatiently against the counter. He must be hungry. "Hey, Thor…what was he like before?"

Thor raised his gaze from the toaster to Tony, curiosity and a sort of yearning mingling on his face. "You have never expressed any interest in my brother before."

Tony instantly felt guilty at the eagerness on Thor's face (christ how long has Thor wanted to talk about this?). "Yeah, well. Can you blame me? The guy's always trying to kill us."

Thor lowered his gaze again and an even bigger spike of guilt wedged its way in Tony's chest (wow way to speak dumbass). "I wish I could stop him."

"So what _was_ he like?" The need to know itched at Tony's skin, his fingers unconsciously began to tap on the counter alongside Thor's, and once Tony noticed, he stopped it immediately.

Thor shifted and sighed, raising a hand and running it through his blonde hair. "Loki was…_Loki_. He was my brother; wise, kind, dependable. He knew just what to say to make me laugh, and he played the greatest jokes on our friends and mentors. Loki was my…greatest friend."

(kind? dependable? _jokes?_) "Wow, I'm kind of having a hard time picturing this."

Thor nodded. "It is understandable. Loki as he has been is hardly what I have just described to you."

"So what happened? How'd he get to be so…" Tony waved his hand.

"Different?" Thor supplied, and Tony shrugged. (not the word he would have went with, but whatever keeps the god of heavy hits on his good side)

The poptarts sprung up from the toaster, and Thor reached forward, delicately placing them on a plate before grabbing two more from the box and plopping them inside the toaster. He pushed the switch down. "I have mentioned that Loki is…adopted."

Tony nodded. Thor searched his face, as though debating on how much to disclose. (why would he bother hide anything? not like Tony's gonna run to the presses). Tony did his best to look open and inviting for potential crazy backstories. Apparently it worked.

"He is not of my kind."

Hold up. "What?"

Thor looked distinctly uncomfortable. "There is race of beings among the realms called the Frost Giants. They are as they are named; they stand above us in stature, and possess qualities of the snow and of the ice. Their skin is blue and frozen to the touch; they are capable of creating ice at will and can survive in the most extreme conditions. And they have been enemies of the Aesir for millennia."

"….and Loki?"

"Loki is of their breed. During a fierce battle between my kind and theirs, Odin All-Father discovered an infant Frost Giant abandoned, which he took home and raised as his own. We never knew. Not even Loki."

Tony bit his lip as something uncomfortable wriggled around in his chest. "Okay, classic adoption story with a bit of a…supernatural twist. (picturing Loki with blue skin and wow okay he just got scarier no thanks) So I guess the whole Aesir complexion is magic?"

Thor tilted his head. "I would assume, whether it is Odin's, or his own now that he is aware of his lineage."

Tony watched as Thor idly fiddled with one of the pastries on his plate. It occurred to Tony to maybe ask Thor how he felt about his brother being adopted, from freaky ice men nonetheless, but he didn't. He just…no, he wasn't going to.

"So um," Tony began again, a little awkward, "why'd he go crazy then? He found out about his adoption?"

Thor broke a corner off of a poptart and brought it to his mouth. He chewed it slowly, a faraway look in his eyes. "Yes…to this day I am not sure that the extent of his madness is due to his discovery. Unfortunately, the Aesir have always hated the Frost Giants, and Loki and I were told many stories of their evil ways as we grew. I…can only guess that finding out that you were what your family hated would be…" His voice cracked and he jammed the rest of the poptart into his mouth, eyes squeezing shut.

(hmm). The curious beat in Tony's chest throbbed with intrigue. More.

Thor looked to be out of commission, much to Tony's sadness. He had enough to chew on for now though, so he clapped Thor on the shoulder in wordless thanks and let the demi-god be emotional with some privacy.

He almost made it back to the elevator before Clint dropped down from the ceiling.

"Jesus!" Tony exclaimed, jumping slightly as the man thumped down next to him.

"Nope, but close." Clint grinned. "Getting some intel on your new _assignment_, lover boy?"

"As a matter of fact, yes." Tony huffed, straightening his shirt. "Just thought I'd get some backstory in case I need to…I don't know, use something against him. Make him squirm." (haha)

Clint looked dubious. "Yeah, good luck with that. Loki's…Loki's not one that can be messed with. His brain is leagues ahead of ours at all times, and not just because he's a wizard shithead."

Tony peered at Clint for a moment, remembrance dawning on him. "That's right…you were under his control…" (wow how did he forget that)

Clint immediately looked like he regretted saying anything. "Yeah."

Tony tilted his head. "Anything juicy I could use against the guy?" (please please please)

The archer's breathing got a little heavier as he shifted his weight from foot to foot. A strange habit, considering his M.O. was usually staying absolutely still in order to get the perfect shot. It was uneasiness, and Tony felt, once again in the space of a few minutes, guilty. "I already told Fury what I knew ages ago, which really, was fucking nothing. Aside from how he likes his damn coffee, the guy was careful with what he said and did around us. Almost like he anticipated that we'd escape and he didn't want to betray too much about himself for when that happened."

(well, shit) "So how'd he like his coffee?"

"Black."

…..

The majority of Tony's free time over the next few weeks was devoted to figuring out what to do next with Loki's cage. He honestly had no idea what to do. Tony Stark, with all of his imagination and mechanical genius, had run out of options. He had tried everything that he could think of to keep the man imprisoned. The trouble simply was that Loki was fucking _magical_. How do you even counteract that? Something as completely unpredictable, unstable, and unknown as _magic_?

The answer is you don't.

Tony's life until Thor and his miserable brother appeared had been just fine. Everything had been solvable, a simple (or not) formula Tony could unravel or create. Equations seemed to flow off of his fingers onto the design boards and soon enough, the equations would turn into systems, into lasers, into bombs, into buildings, into whatever Tony's imagination wanted. Everything was _possible_, everything was _definite. _

Now…Tony was lost. It was endlessly frustrating to be the person Tony was and not _understand_ something, to not have it figured out, and to come to the realization that maybe he would _never _understand it. It made his teeth grit to endlessly scribble equations, only to have them fail; to build things only to for them fizzle out (wrong wrong wrong wrong _wrong_) because magic was something impossible.

So what could he do but just try and try with things he knew how to make until, maybe, just ONE of them might work?

And he had run out. He had nothing to work with.

He wrote and crossed out more 'maybe magic' equations and drank endless amounts of coffee and booze until he woke up sprawled out on the floor with a blanket JARVIS had one of Tony's bots place over his wasted body during the night.

This happened for weeks. Tony got absolutely nowhere in trying to figure out what to do with the cage. What was going to happen if Loki showed up and Tony had literally nothing to put him in? Like that actually mattered, since he could apparently leave whenever he fucking wanted. They could just catch him and throw him onto a couch in the lounge room and it would have the same effect as the cube.

And then there was the matter with the Aesir freak himself. It wasn't enough that Tony had the impossibility of magic and Loki's prison on his mind—Loki himself was a constant presence in Tony's head, his brief conversation with the demi-god on continuous repeat, Loki's rich voice echoing in his ears. The bits of the man Tony had picked up from Thor only made the pull in his chest feel all the stronger—Tony wanted _more._ He wanted to know Loki's version of the story, how he felt when he found out about his true parents, why he did what he did. "Know" wasn't really the right word for what Tony wanted—he wanted to _absorb _the information, take it in, and fucking maybe Tony might be all right after. Maybe then he could let go and move on with his life. This Loki thing…

It invaded his dreams, the few he had. When Tony would collapse on the couch or more often the floor in a drunken exhaustion, his dreams would, every time, be a muddled, confusing display of greens, of bright sparks of magic, of strange people with blue skin and red eyes looming over him in frozen wastelands, of velvet whispers in his ear, of cold, long fingers wrapped around his wrists and it was horrible.

All in all, a pretty shitty situation.

It was four weeks after Tony's talk with Thor that something, _something_finally occurred to him.

He was sitting at his work desk, staring dazedly at the screens in front of him, tapping lightly on the arc reactor in his chest with his fingertips, thinking about Loki. Specifically, the scepter Loki had used during the whole kerfuffle with the Chituari. Tony had thought about that irritating thing quite often since the day Loki had tried to take him over with it—why hadn't that worked, exactly? Tony had definitely picked up some things i.e. the scepter's gem glowed exactly the same way as his arc reactor, which glowed the same way as the Tesseract. The scepter and the Tesseract looking the same was understandable, but his arc reactor? Truthfully, the thing had given off a blue-white light _before _Tony had replaced the palladium core with his new, strange, Daddy-Stark discovered element, but….with the new core Loki couldn't take over his mind with the scepter.

To sum up: the scepter gem material/the Tesseract, magical items, were made of the same stuff that was powering the arc reactor in Tony's chest.

Tony had tried his very best to figure out how Loki made this element do the magical things it did after coming to this realization some months before, but he had, of course, failed miserably. However…

"_However,_" Tony now said in contemplation, "maybe if I put it in the _cube_..."

And then he had something new to work with.

It took him a few days to make enough of the element to have even a little bit threaded around the cube (he only ended up with a few grams, but he could work with that), and then another few to bend and melt and twist tiny threads of all the other metals from before (the more precaution the better) into new panels of glass. It was tiring, sweaty warm work, but it was _work _and Tony was pretty happy.

When at last he stood in front of the new cube, the glass ever-so-slightly glowing now, he was ready.

Ready for Loki, whenever he decided to appear again. Something just felt _right_ this time, like this version of the cube might actually _work._ Tony was pretty fucking eager to try it out. He was ready.

Fury had given him a job to do. He wanted to do it.

…..

Loki came back a few days later. Tony and the others were watching Steve and Natasha play a game of ping pong, testing out whose reflexes were greater. It was actually looking pretty tied, and the other Avengers were doing at great job jeering at them (Tony and Clint) and cheering them on (Bruce and Thor), when Fury's barking voice was transmitted by JARVIS that Loki was messing around in the Bronx, and they suited up.

Everyone that couldn't fly piled into a helicopter courtesy of SHIELD, and Tony and Thor took off into the sky. It wasn't a very long flight, which was unfortunate, as Tony's pulse was entirely too fast and he had barely a second to try to calm it down before he was landing in a graveyard and Loki was staring at (into) him.

"Loki."

"Stark."

Loki surveyed Tony quietly, his eyes bright in his pale face, and did he…get a haircut? It was much shorter now, still sleek, but this time instead of curling up at the shoulders it was trimmed neatly just under his ears. It made him look less wild, less feral. But unfortunately, more like tidy, silent cunning. It…suited him.

Thor landed next to Tony with a burst of mud and grass, Mjolnir pointing at Loki's face aggressively. "BROTHER!"

Loki rolled his eyes and turned back to where he was, apparently, raising the fucking dead. His fingers glowed a spectral green, and suddenly, there were cadavers digging their way out of graves. (what the ever loving _fuck_)

Thor dove at Loki arms outstretched, and barrelled into him, knocking the dark-haired god into the ground. Tony let Thor have his moment and turned his attention to where at least thirty dead people were limping around. Naturally, there happened to be some civilians in the graveyard, and they were running and shrieking, which was understandable because _wow _what is even happening?

"Uh, guys, Loki's made zombies."

"Sorry, what?" Came Steve's incredulous voice over the com, and the helicopter was _whup-whup_ing in the sky overhead, they were almost there.

"I'm serious," Tony said, trying to keep his voice level as Loki shoved Thor off of him and looked up at Tony as he hovered in the air, aiming at a few zombies, (jesus those are some ridiculously green eyes how did he ever get that messed up before?) "He's used some kind of spell and all these dead guys are just lumbering around."

Steve, Natasha, Bruce and Clint dropped down from the helicopter from ropes, and Tony watched from above as they stared in disbelief at the sight before them. Natasha, not wasting more than a moment, darted forward while the other three stayed back for a few moments longer.

"What the fuck?" Clint asked, reaching back for an arrow and shaking his head. "That's just…but _why?"_

Steve sighed before pulling down his cowl and running forward. "Not sure, but we gotta get rid of them."

Was this seriously it, though? Tony shot a couple of zombies in the face with his repulsors, and oh god, their entire rotting heads just exploded off of their bodies. They kept moving though, heads or not, and Tony was thoroughly grossed out.

More bodies emerged from their graves as the team attempted to take them out, each quickly realizing they wouldn't stop until their very limbs were too pulverized to move. If this was it, really, this wasn't such a big deal—

"Fuck, Stark, Rogers, agents-it's everywhere," Came Fury's voice suddenly over the com, "he's brought back dead people from every fucking graveyard in New York." Sounds of people screaming in terror followed Fury's announcement, recordings from all over the city, and oh, okay now this is a big deal.

"Fuuuuck." Clint hissed as he dropped a middle-aged woman, her skin green skin waxy, not too long deceased. "We can't get around to every graveyard fast enough, even with the Hulk."

Bruce was now only just wigging out, the sound of the screaming triggering his transformation. In seconds he was huge and roaring, diving at the cadavers and ripping them apart.

"Loki is the key to this," Steve said calmly as he watched the Hulk, who really, was much more effective and much less grossed out for this job. "If we stop Loki, maybe the bodies will revert back to normal."

This was everyone's cue to look at the villain, who was still fighting Thor. Well, he was toying with Thor. Loki moved nimbly from foot to foot as Thor roared and grabbed for him. Tony gritted his teeth in an effort to quell the sudden urge to giggle.

Having had enough, Thor raised Mjolnir and brought forth a bolt of lightning, which Loki effortlessly evaded. While Thor's arm was still outstretched, Loki dove forward and jammed a small dagger into Thor's ribs, and that's when the Avengers interfered. As Thor grabbed Loki's wrist and pulled the blade out, Tony rocketed down and, ignoring the flutter in his chest, aimed carefully and shot at Loki's head. The repulsor beam snapped Loki's head forward, and following it, one of Clint's arrows buried itself into Loki's thigh.

The man snarled in rage, raising his hands to magic the shaft out of his leg, and Natasha swiftly dove forward and knocked Loki's legs out from under him. He fell, his helmet knocking off of his head as he hit the ground, leg bleeding profusely. Thor, grunting slightly, raised his hand while Loki was dazed slightly and whacked him over the head. Loki let out small sigh as he closed his eyes and fell over, unconscious.

As soon as he was out, the zombies in the area all seemed to…die. They crumpled and fell to the ground.

And…Loki was captured once again. Tony ignored the usual antsy feeling he got whenever they somehow managed to miraculously defeat Loki, and Fury's words bumped around in his head

_what I don't fucking understand is how you are capable of bringing him __in__, but you can't __keep__ him_

Tony intended to find out.

* * *

This is my first Frostiron fic, and I have to say, it is so much fun to write. :D Feedback is greatly, greatly appreciated, as I am kind of fumbling my way along here with these guys and I'd love to know what you think!


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